This Blog is being updated by Travis's Mom with pictures and weekly emails received as he serves a 2 year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Fukuoka, Japan from May 2013-May 2015.
Travis would love to hear from you. Letters and packages should be mailed to him via USPS only. His address in Fukuoka, Japan is (each comma represents a new line):
Elder Travis J. Bloomfield,
Japan Fukuoka Mission,
9-16 Hirao-josuimachi,
Chuo-Ku,
Fukuoka-shi, Fukuoka,
810-0029, Japan

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

27 March 2015 - The Lord is Hastening His Work and All You Have To Do To Participate Is Open Your Mouth!

Hello family,

This week was great. Last Sunday we accompanied Kaicho to attend the Kagoshima District Conference and it was arguably one of the happiest days on my mission so far. I had the opportunity to see many of the people we had the opportunity to teach and see get baptized, actively serving in their callings, see the light and happiness they are having in their life and how much they have changed as they have continued to endure to the end. When we first pulled up to the church Yamauchi Kyodai saw Elder Sasaki and I and started jumping up and down. Ha ha Such a cute old man, but he was fulfilling his responsibility and helping out the the Elder's Quorum. Irisa Shimai has made a choir in Kagoshima and they had the special musical number in the District Conference which was way super good. Uchida Shimai was also part of the choir and helped out with Relief Society stuff. Then! randomly Hidekazu kun (he was baptized the week I was transferred to Kagoshima) happened to be home from school and the 1 week he could attend church was last Sunday. He told us how he went through the temple in November, and received the Melchezidek Priesthood last month. He is super genki and his faith is so strong. It also just so happened that he had had something he had been wondering about but needed help with and because we happened to be in Kagoshima at the same time he was excited to get our advice and felt like Heavenly Father was really looking out for him. But it was just awesome to see the change that has taken place in these people and just their countenance that we could see since we last met them. The gospel of Jesus Christ stays true to its promise, if you just simply trust and rely on the Lord you find more happiness and light in your life.

Other than that this week we just had our last Zone Conferences and then went on a bunch of splits with elders in the mission. By the end of the week we will have worked with I think 6 or 7 different companionships. As always there are super cool miracles on splits.

Hmm well one of them, the Elder I was working with and I were praying the night before in planning specifically for a man in need of the gospel. As we looked at the map we saw a park and felt we should go there, so we made the plan and told the Lord we would work to the south east corner of the park at exactly 2:30 the next day and when we got there the next day at the exact corner we were thinking of, there just so happened to be a bench with a business man sitting there (little bit out of place to be in a park but I won't judge). We talked to him about Christ and showed him "Because of Him" and he told us that he is an salesman but lately work has been very difficult and he decided to come to the park today to just kind of recoup, but seeing "Because of Him" gave him hope to move on and continue on in life and told us he wants to start bringing his family to church. Coincidence? hmmm... the Lord is hastening His work and all you have to do to participate is open your mouth!

Hope you are all doing well!

Elder Bloomfield

Elder Sasaki, Yamauchi Kyodai (it got a lil toasty after church so the tie came off) and Travis